C'est la vie, c'est la mort
by androidilenya
Summary: [Such is life, such is death.] Two girls, seven Reapings, and eight conversations.


**I'm not entirely sure about the quality of this, but eh. Feedback appreciated, anyways!**

* * *

Living in Panem is a funny thing.

On the one hand, you never quite know whether you will live through the year––if you're a kid between the ages of twelve and eighteen, that is. On the other hand, there are the Capitol and the Victors and everything they stand for. Perhaps that could be something you want, you might think, watching that boy who won the Games three years ago parade around on television, dressed in the finest clothes; or watching that girl – woman, now – who won fourteen years ago sit in front of her house, eating food you don't even know the name of, let alone how much it must cost (only that it must be a lot).

Could be worth it, you think.

That's a lie, of course. You don't want that, because of what they paid to get there. What they're _still_ paying.

(_Doesn't matter_, part of you might think as you watch your next-door neighbor bury her infant son, face stone and eyes dry because she's too hungry and tired to cry. _The price can't be as high as that, can't ever be as high as what we already live with..._)

You know it is.

* * *

"You're not scared, are you?"

"We're twelve, idiot. No way either of us will get picked." The girl tore up a handful of grass, ripped it into tiny shreds. "Anyways, if I get picked I expect you to be very dramatic and volunteer for me, huh?"

A sharp, forced laugh as the other girl shook her head. "Fat chance of that. I'm not risking my life. I like being alive _much_ more than I like you, thank you very much."

"Well, then."

"But if you did get Reaped, I'd make sure to visit your grave and cry over it every now and then."

"Sure you would."

"I _would_, Azzie."

They stared at each other for a few long moments, neither sure what the other was going to say. In the distance, a bell tolled. The first girl sighed and stood, dusting off the bottom of her blue skirt.

"That's our signal."

The other girl stood as well, grabbed Azzie's hand. "Don't die," she said, and if the light note in her voice was a little forced, they both pretended not to notice.

"You too."

...

"You're late."

"Hardly my fault. I got held up on the way here." Azzie sat down with a soft noise of relief. "And god, is this a long walk. Remind me again why we picked this place?"

The other girl laughed. "You're the one who wanted to sit here last year. You can see the whole town from here, you said."

"Which is a good thing because...?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Don't you ever... don't you ever just want to leave? This––this District, this country, it's all so... _stupid_." Settled on for lack of a better word, hardly all-encompassing. The other girl understood.

"The only way either of us will ever leave this District is if we get––y'know." It seemed like bad luck to say the word, today of all days, but it was clear what she meant, and Azzie nodded.

"It wouldn't be worth it."

"No, it wouldn't be."

...

"How many slips do you think are in that bowl?"

Azzie contemplated this, sucking on a strand of her hair and staring off at the dim horizon, a purple blur they had always figured were mountains. "Thousands. Thousands and thousands." She glanced at the other girl. "You don't think––you're not worried, are you, Ella?"

"No, not worried."

"Three slips isn't a lot. Especially among – _thousands_."

"I know that." Ella let out a short, mirthless laugh. "Every kid in Panem is worried about that right now, worried that their slip's gonna be the one to jump out into the Escort's hand. Anxiety is hardly anything special."

"Except the Careers," Azzie noted. "They're... they like this, don't they?"

"They're insane."

"Everyone knows _that_."

"But it'd be easier, in District One, to know that even if you are picked you won't have to go if you don't want to, because a hundred kids will rush the stage, clamoring for your spot––" Ella laughed again. "Foolish of them, wanting to die."

"No Career walks into the arena expecting to die."

"Don't they?"

Azzie contemplated this. "Perhaps. That'd be almost sad, though, wouldn't it?"

"The whole damn thing is sad, Az."

...

"I had a fight with my mother this morning."

"What happened?"

"It was––it was _stupid_, that's all it was, and I don't even remember what set her off but she––god, Ella, what if that's the last time I ever see her?"

"You won't get Reaped."

"But can you guarantee that?"

"No one can. You know that."

"Do you know how messed up that is, that we have to fear that we're going to die once a year, just because of some rebellion that happened before our parents were born?" Azzie picked up a pebble and hurled it at the hazy horizon, off the hill and into the distance.

"That in and of itself is rebellious talking, Az."

"Maybe that's _right_, have you ever thought of that? Maybe another rebellion wouldn't be so bad."

Ella shifted, keeping her eyes on the grass in front of her. "Do you really think you're the first one to come up with that, Az?" she asked, sounding more tired than anything else. "Do you think talking about how much the Capitol sucks is a _new_ thing?"

"They have no right, they can't do this––"

"And yet they still do, year after year, you'll notice."

"Punishing us for something that happened so long ago is pointless, it's only setting up for another rebellion when we finally decide to stand up and do something about it––"

"And when will that be, do you think?" Ella asked quietly, and Azzie closed her mouth, deflating slightly.

"It'll happen," she insisted, and Ella shrugged.

"I'm not denying that. I just think it'll take years and years for us to stop being afraid."

...

"Three more years, counting this one." She traced the outline of a cloud in the sky with the tip of her finger, head in Ella's lap. "Think we'll make it?"

"Most kids do." Ella's fingers were tangled in Azzie's dark hair, absentmindedly running through it. "Contrary to popular belief, only two kids get picked a year, out of hundreds and hundreds."

"And how many come back?"

Ella laughed. "I'm the fatalistic one, Az, not you."

"None," she insisted, ignoring Ella's comment. "None of them come back, right?"

"Some kids have won."

"They don't really come back, though." Azzie reached up, caught Ella's wrist in one hand, stilling her restless movement. "No one comes back from the arena."

"Okay." She pulled her hand free, resumed stroking Azzie's hair. "Whatever you say."

Azzie closed her eyes and leaned into the touch with a soft noise. "I'd come back for you, y'know, if I got Reaped," she whispered, soft enough that Ella couldn't be sure she hadn't said something else.

...

"You're quiet today."

Azzie shrugged, folding and unfolding the hem of her shirt over and over, keeping her eyes down. Ella watched her, frowning.

"Something on your mind?"

"Only what's on my mind every year around this time, El." Her voice was flat, emotionless.

"More than usual, then?"

"Sure. Whatever."

"Azzie."

"It's nothing."

"It's your brother's first year, isn't it?"

Azzie opened her mouth as if about to deny that, then closed it and nodded.

"One slip, Az. Nothing."

"One isn't _nothing_, they taught us that much in math class––"

"Az." Ella grabbed her arm, tightening her hand. "It's the same as our first year, the same as every first year, the twelve year olds _never get picked_."

"They do, though. The Capitol likes it when there's a young one, they think it makes a better _show_––or didn't you think it was odd that there's nearly always a twelve year old, if not two or three, the odds of that are so small––"

"It'll be fine."

Azzie turned her face up, dull terror and panic in her eyes. "But what if––"

"It won't happen."

"You can't guarantee that."

Ella laughed. "I've told you already. No one can."

...

"This is the last time. Try to look a bit happier about that."

"We have seven slips this year, in case you've forgotten."

"Fourteen. There's two of us."

"I wasn't counting _yours_, if mine gets picked I don't expect you to up and volunteer for me––"

"I love you too, El."

"Yeah. Sure."

Azzie looked up from the chain of flowers she had been braiding together (yellow and small, considered weeds everywhere but where they grew wild and beautiful), scowling in mock anger. "Are you questioning my word, Elanor?"

"Don't call me that," Ella replied, but there was a twitch of amusement at the corners of her mouth.

"Anyways." Azzie lifted the flower chain, draped it over Ella's neck. "Next year, do you still want to come back here?"

"Even though we won't have a Reaping to worry about?" Ella considered that. "I wouldn't mind."

"Good." Azzie's hand slipped into hers, fingers twining through hers. "It'll be much prettier once we don't have to worry about getting sent away to die, right?"

"Right."

* * *

Living in Panem is a funny thing.

You can talk about odds all you wanted, about how there's no chance––a very _small_ chance, at least––that your name will be the one to emerge from that glass bowl. You can even claim that the chances of that name being that of someone you know (someone you love) are equally small. There are thousands of kids in a District, after all, and only two a year will die in the arena.

So maybe when you do hear that name (not yours, but it might as well be), you find that you can't move, that you're incapable of doing more than standing there and watching, still not sure you heard right––_can't be her, wouldn't be her, there's no way––_

And maybe by the time you realize what happened, it's too late.

(And you still have to watch, because even if you wanted to you couldn't tear your eyes away from the glowing screen, and at the very last maybe she smiled, blood streaking her face and a faceless boy standing above her wielding a flash of silver, and maybe that smile was for you even though you couldn't help her in the end.)

Going on is the hardest part, but you think you can handle it. She handled the arena, after all, so the least you could do is handle the rest of your life, the decades that stretch on and on, a lifetime of seconds and minutes and years without her.

* * *

"Were you afraid?"

The gravestone was on the hill, as she had requested. The name there was short, and the dates under it even shorter.

"You weren't." Not a question, a statement. "You never were. I would've been." The girl sank to her knees, hand stretching out and hovering over the carved name.

"Did you know that I loved you?" she asked. "You told me you did so many times, and now I can't even remember if I told you the same in return––"

The bell below began to ring, the tolling noise echoing up through the still air, summoning the children to the town square. She glanced back over her shoulder, then back at the grave.

"I'm sorry, Azzie."

The rage had passed over the course of a year, the sobs and the screams (she had come up here by moonlight for weeks after the wooden box returned on a silent train, shouted at the stars above––_not fair, it was our last year, it's not_ fair––and no answer, from Azzie's stone or the sky, but she had never expected one).

All that was left, now, was this silence and her and the sky above, so much smaller without the girl beside her.

She leaned against the grave, back to the cold stone, and dug her fingers into the ground, closing her eyes and imagining she could feel hands in hers, hear a distant laugh.

"I told you I wanted to come back here, after we didn't have to worry about getting Reaped." She opened her eyes to look at the sky above. "But I don't think you were right, Azzie, it's not as pretty up here anymore."


End file.
